[
Morsky: Whatever gave you that idea?
And Europe is just going to be a mess for a while here... there will be some very familiar faces, though, although they might not necessarily be doing the same things...
English Patriot: Oh, plenty of trouble, plenty of trouble indeed... let me just say that I was at -2 or -3 stability for a couple decades straight around this point.
RGB: No Brasil, I fear, although the other Portuguese areas are going to start getting in on the act. And as for the turn of the century... oh, you have
no idea... no idea at all...]
Throughout 1785 and 1786, Britain was gripped by the threat of imminent revolution. Although the Levellers proper insisted upon their loyalty to the Empress, some radical groups began to agitate for a popular republic, returning to the Digger rhetoric of the Civil War in their demands for a republican government, universal male suffrage, abolition of the nobility, and similar matters. In this, they brought forward Jefferson's writings from the American Revolution, as well as the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen which had been released by the Dutch revolutionary government. In Britain proper, however, this never amounted to more than scattered riots in the quickly-growing industrial cities of the Midlands.
America recieved a second wave of revolt, however, after a series of poor financial decisions by the Massachusetts government. Payment for the services of the loyal militia during the Revolution had been delayed due to anticipation of the creation of the American dominion, yet even nearly a decade after that event the province was too deep in debt to meet the obligations. Their solution only made the matter worse: in attempting to gain repayment from its own debtors, the government proceeded to seize the property of the same militia. The complex web of obligations was prepared to collapse entirely; the American dominion government expressed an interest in intervening, but could not raise its own money to help the problem, requiring voluntary payments from the various provinces for this to occur. None of the other provinces had any particular reason to want to help Massachusetts, leaving all involved entirely unable or unwilling to do anything to help.
Finally, in September of 1786, the former militiamen had reached their breaking point. Under the command of Captain Daniel Shays, the hastily-raised group marched on the city of Springfield, hoping to disrupt a court meeting there that they feared would result in further seizure of property. The town was taken, a call for a republic put out, and a "freedom tree" like that raised in Haarlem the previous year erected. Over the winter of 1786-1787, the rebels and the new militia of the province fought each other several times; finally, in February, the rebels were mostly captured and resistande ended. Shays' call was not picked up in general across America, but the local incident frightened the state governments. The new Governor-General, Guy Carleton, Lord Dorchester, requested the creation of a new governing document, and as early as 10 October 1786, the Continental Congress sent a petition to London asking for permission to form a Constitutional Convention. Permission was quickly granted, and on 25 May 1787 the negotiations began.
Although the early proceedings were, as expected, dominated by the aging but still-charismatic Benjamin Franklin and Baron Washington, the two men who would become most closely connected with the Convention were both too young to have taken part in the American Revolution: James Madison of New Lothian, and Alexander Hamilton, illegitimate son of a Scottish lord, born in the West Indies and settled in New York. The way the two played off each other had a major effect on the outcome of the American Constitution. Madison was a proponent of maintaining the British model of carefully balancing governmental powers to prevent the legislature or Governor-General from drowning the other out, or the provinces and the central government from trying to steal power from the other. Hamilton, for his part, was mostly concerned with strengthening the central government as far as possible, limiting the infighting between provinces and moving towards Hamilton's plans for a unified national economic policy.
Alexander Hamilton, by John Trumbull (1806) and James Madison, by Gilbert Stuart (1821)
The "Philadelphia Convention" was troubled from the start. Rhode Island and Newfoundland (again) refused to send any delegates at all, and many of the others walked out in the middle when the plan proposed by New Jersey was rejected as too similar to the Articles. This left only the plans of Hamilton and Madison to be seariously considered. The former was, by outward appearance, a copy of the British government, with a lifetime elected (by a group of electors chosen by the various provinces) Senate in place of the House of Lords and the Governor General in place of the Emperor. There was still an appointed Council of State, the elected half of the new American Parliament was still either three years or until the Governor-General dissolved it, and so on. Very little power was retained by the provinces, most of it indirect, and the central government was given wide ability to intervene in provincial affairs.
Madison's "Virginia Plan", on the other hand, was a radical departure. The Senate was appointed directly by the provinces, the Governor-General's veto powers wielded only indirectly through his part of a joint Council of Revision (along with the Supreme Tribunals), the legislature and not the Governor-General established the lesser courts, and the legislature could override a veto by the Council of Revision. The intricate web of "checks and balances" was at points hard to follow, but Madison merely felt that this meant it was strong and hard to get around. Overall, Hamilton's plan best replicated the
appearance of the main British government, while Madison's best captured its
spirit. The two turned to the other delegates to work out a compromise; finally, after months of debate, on 17 September 1789, the compromise Constitution was approved and signed.
Scene at the Signing of the Constitution of America, by Howard Chandler Christy (1940). The standing figure is Baron Washington (in front of the variant "Constellation Flag"; Franklin, Hamilton, and Madison are seated in the centre.
The resulting plan leaned more towards Hamilton's than Madison's, although the appointment of lower courts by the Parliament, and allowance of a legislative veto, were retained.* The lack of a Bill of Rights as in the Instrument was noted, and quickly corrected; finally, the Constitution was sent to the provinces for approval. This was hard-fought, particularly in Madison's Virginia and Hamilton's New York; eventually, however, all the provinces aside from Newfoundland approved it, beginning with the Bahamas in late 1787 and ending with Rhode Island only in 1789.
Nearby, in Hamilton's native West Indies, minor unrest was also ongoing. This would not have been particularly notable, had it not been for the man the Royal Navy sent in response to the matter. The marines sent to put down the rebellions, aboard the HMS
Hinchinbroke, were commanded by a young Norfolk man, Captain Horace Nelson. Nelson, a newphew of French and Indian War hero Maurice Suckling and great-grandson of Robert Walpole's sister, was a skilled tactician and brilliant navigator with little regard for caution or convention. Despite spending rather too much of his time in the Indies wooing women, Nelson time and again showed his ability in combining his ships with land assaults throughout the 1780s, stopping operations only for recurrances of his malarial infection and bad weather, and quickly gained the attention of the Admiralty.
Horace Nelson, by John Francis Rigaud (1781)
Further rebellion took place in the Cape of Good Hope Colony on the southern end of Africa. Being another colony seized from the Portuguese, and by far the largest retained in direct control by the British, the local
fazendeiros (farmers) insisted on some measure of self-rule as well, especially with a larger Catholic presence. The spark of open rebellion was the killing of Cornélio Basurto by soldiers coming for his arrest for mistreatment of servants and contempt of court on 16 October 1785. His brother João, calling for revenge, led a rebellion throughout the northwestern portion of the Cape Colony, using Catholic grievances against the Protestant leadership as a cause. Attempts to put down the rebellion were of mixed success, and were not fully successful before the end of the decade.
As this was going on, the retirement of Sydney from his position as First Lord of the Treasury left the matter of the new holder of the position as an absolutely vital one. The choice between Pitt the Younger and Fox was considered to be the main determiner of whether Britain would lean towards opposition or support to the young Dutch revolutionary government. It was at this point that Elisabeth, newly married to the influential heir to the Duke of Bedford, John Russell, made her first decision as a true Empress, and it was a poor one: she came out in support of Fox, despite the Whigs being the larger party, breaking what had been an unspoken rule in the late 18th century that the Emperor did not attempt to go entirely against the makeup of Parliament in choosing a First Minister. Parliament reacted by insisting upon Pitt, and Elisabeth retreated.
Pitt immediately cut off relations with the Batavian Republic, and began moving foreign relations in the direction of France, Britan's traditional enemy. Louis XI of France was confused but delighted to find Britain suddenly helpful in dealing with the Republic, and the thaw in relations between the two was shown in the signing of the Eden Agreement, a lowering of tarrifs, with France on 26 September 1786. Pitt was not being entirely altruistic, however; in a replay of two decades previous, the British managed to subtly make the agreement well in their favour. More importantly, however, the pro-French policy secured the southern border of Flanders, allowing Pitt to pursue his anti-Batavian policy. On 14 June 1787, Great Britain, Baden, and Portugal declared war on the Batavian Republic and the Palatinate. Pitt had portrayed the war to the pro-Batavian faction as simply supporting Baden's claim to Palatine border lands, but few were fooled; as soon as the declaration was sent out, Parliament exploded into various factions, greatly hampering the actual prosecution of the war.
The reprieve was small for the Dutch, however. Their navy, rebuilt into a modern one after the humiliation of 1739, sailed out to try and catch the British one before it was ready. The Royal Navy was more ready than they thought, however; on 4 July 1787, near Camperdown in Holland, the Dutch fleet under Rear Admiral Johan Zoutman met a British fleet under Admiral Richard Howe. The action was quick, destructive, and decisive for the British. The first notable part of the battle was the temporary fall of Admiral Howe's flag; the famed bravery of the youthful apprentice Jack Crawford in nailing it back to the mast became the celebrated part of the battle. Aside from that, the battle was most famous for the fact that later notables such as Captains William Bligh and (fresh from the West Indies) Horace Nelson were present. Although not difficult, the battle was later seen as being vital in keeping the Royal Navy "in practice" for the coming years.
The Battle of Camperdown, by Thomas Whitcombe (1788)
On land, the Batavians stood little chance. Soon after the sea phase ended, the Dutch army was swept aside, although once this was achieved, the British army was slow in advancing. Parliament was locked in deep debate over the matter, and it was becoming increasingly difficult for Pitt to gain funding for the Dutch war. This was realised on the front as a lack of supplies and late pay, resulting in desertions and minor mutinies, cannon becoming stuck in the swampy ground, and horses dying from lack of food. The British army only reached Haarlem on 15 October, and was in no position to assault the city; forced to wait out the winter, they only convinced the Dutch to surrender on 9 January 1788.
By this point, Pitt's ministry was in deep trouble, as opposition to the war grew and support for the Orangists dried up entirely. Elisabeth gladly took the opportunity to be rid of Pitt, dissolving Pitt's parliament and bringing about new elections. These, in the middle of 1788, returned strongly for the Levellers; those supportive of the Batavian cause had finally organised and roused the middle class "in defence of freedom here and elsewhere". Fox became the new First Minister, the first Leveller to hold the position (this being seen by supporters of Pitt as a revolution all its own, and just as bad), and the political climate in Europe shifted dramatically.
Even before Fox began his ministry, the effects of this were becoming visible. In the treaty that ended the short Dutch war, on 12 March 1788, Britain made few demands of the Netherlands, mostly symbolic ones, and left the Batavian Republic completely intact. The only shift in the war was the transfer of the region of Heidelberg from the Palatinate to Baden. Otherwise the war was barely recognisable as a victory for that half of the remnants of the League of Augsburg against the other; the most important effect of the war was the weakening of the Palatinate, resulting in the French taking Lorraine and Alsace in 1792. Britain's support of the Batavian Republic, however, removed any possiblity that France, or any other nation, could remove it, and by the end of the 1780s the Batavians were firmly in place. Republican movements appeared again in Europe, particularly in France and Austria, although neither succeeded in overthrowing their respective absolute monarchs on their own.
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*Notably, unlike the Instrument, the Constitution was vague on voting requirements, leaving this mostly to the states, and allowing New Jersey to be peculiar in the world at the time in allowing women to vote.
